Short, yet sweet; a great tease for the new season
Telltale's The Walking Dead was, without a doubt, one of the best narrative experiences in gaming. While the wait for season two has been arduous, the studio threw a fan community a bone with The Walking Dead: 400 Days, a short expansion that serves as a lead-in to the next season and introduces a whole new cast of characters.
400 Days differs from season one's format, delivering a series of short vignettes that present that back stories and motivations of five survivors who have nothing in common with each other outside of coming into close proximity with a nondescript truck stop. The stories can be played in any order, although there are moments in which events and characters from some stories (including brief cameos from season one) make an appearance. 400 Days is incredibly light on gameplay and quick time sequences, given that the entire experience only lasts for about an hour. Some stories are better than others (I thought Vince's scenario was the best of the bunch) and there are plenty of important decisions to be made and consequences to live with that will be carried into the next set of episodes. Based on the ending I earned, I'm really interested to see how one person's absence will affect the group dynamic.
Graphically, the game continues to thumb its nose at the notion that intense graphical prowess is the key to unlocking a player's emotional connection to video game characters by implementing the same Tony Moore-inspired cel shaded look of the original game. In some ways, many of them small, the art direction and animation looks better than it did in the original series.
It may not offer much in terms of gameplay, but this is sure to be an important piece to the overall tapestry of The Walking Dead. Short, yet sweet, this is a must play for those who awarded the series Game of the Year.
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